National Lottery Players’ priorities for spending on the heritage good cause

Take part in our online consultation, which is open until 22 March 2018Credit: Nigel Hillier

To help us plan for the future, we’ve been finding out what National Lottery players see as priorities for our funding.

Our researchers held workshops with over 200 National Lottery players across the UK where participants shared their views on HLF funding.

We have been listening to these views and will be using the results from the research, as well as other consultation work, to help us make decisions about our work in the future. We will be setting out what people can expect from us as a funder in a strategic framework, which will be published in 2018.

The researchers asked the public to discuss heritage and funding of heritage and share their ideas with others in the group. We’ve grouped what they talked about into five broad themes:

Breadth of funding

National Lottery players are pleasantly surprised by the variety of work funded by HLF – from landscapes and parks to precious memories and archaeology. One participant from Lincoln said, “It’s so much more than buildings!”

They like the fact that smaller and larger projects can access funding and they are keen for this diversity to continue.

Heritage alleviating social issues

We asked National Lottery players to focus on ways in which heritage can have an impact on social, cultural and economic issues, contributing to wellbeing and the local economy.

This is a priority for National Lottery players. They feel that heritage can help these issues through:

Using heritage buildings for community spaces

Supporting education, learning, skills and training

Bringing people together

Creating a sense of community and pride in an area by improving local areas

One participant from Huddersfield suggested, “You could take a street of derelict, but historic houses, and bring them back to use as social housing, teaching the young kids to do the work”.

HLF being pro-active

At the workshops, participants talked about how HLF should fund projects. They feel that HLF could be more active in communities by finding out what local people want for their heritage and supporting people who want to do heritage projects. One participant explained, “Go into the community to find what is needed – this will probably be an eye opener”.

Involving the public in decision-making

Participants talked about public involvement in funding decisions. They feel that decisions about community funding should include the views of people from that community. One participant suggested, “Make decisions with the community…ask them what should be funded, don’t make decisions on your own.” Some participants think that the community could be involved through face-to-face workshops and others have suggested using social media.

Raising awareness

National Lottery players think it’s important that people have heard of HLF and that they understand what we do. They feel that people don’t know what is being achieved with Lottery funding and what HLF is supporting in their local area. By raising awareness of the work of HLF, people can volunteer, visit and feel proud of what their National Lottery ticket purchase is doing for their region.

Read the report

To find out more about what National Lottery players told us, you can read the full report below.

What's next?

This research is part of HLF’s consultation on our role, vision and funding priorities for the next five years. We will be using the results from this research as we plan our next strategic framework. You can add your views on the future of National Lottery funding for heritage by taking part in our online consultation, which is open until Thursday 22 March 2018.